They say you can never go home again Let's clear up this question right away. No, I haven't had 18 months of writer's block. I was at a paper where it was thought to be "not good form" to be writing for the competition. Well, that's history. Things have changed and I am back on the pages of the Patriot. I think that might make some happy, some sad, and a whole lot of you will never really care one way or the other.

As corny as this sounds, I consider writing for the Patriot a joyful privilege. First, I find it amazing that this old rag has been around this town for 177 years. Second, I have been around this town for 55 years, which I find amazing as well. I think that gives me a little license to wax nostalgic about my hometown.

I love the idea of helping sew a few threads into this grand old ink-stained quilt chronicling my town's history.

I am not a trained journalist (my editors will quickly acknowledge that), but I have a little institutional knowledge about the town that I would like to share in this column.

It may kindle some memories in those of you that have been around awhile, and might serve to enlighten those who haven't.

In a way, the Patriot has always been a part of my life. I grew up across the street in Cummaquid from Barb and Pete Williams, whose family for generations gathered news from the neighborhoods on who was getting married, who was on vacation, who was home from school, or what a remarkable snow storm had just clogged our roads.

But it isn't just the mundane nuts and bolts of gossip reporting about people down the street that keeps the paper in the hands of its readers each week. When extraordinary news necessitates, this paper has written about wars from Gettysburg to Baghdad. Events like the Wright Brothers lifting off the sands of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, to Neil Armstrong stepping down on the grainy rock surface of the moon. Of tragedies from the Titanic to JFK's assassination, to the World Trade Center attack. In its own little way it has covered big news because it has felt an obligation to do so for you, its readers.

The Williamses and now today Rob Sennott have always had the luxury of a stable of talented newspaper reporters like Ed Semprini, Fred Bodensiek, Francis Broadhurst, Peter Owens, David Still II, and Ed Maroney, so luckily I don't have to try to emulate them, not that I ever could.

Those of you who recall this column will remember that I often wrote about life growing up in Barnstable. I've talked about my pride, my joy, my son Jack, who's now 10 years old and growing up quickly. I've talked about this and that, but never anything serious.

I have left that to the aforementioned above. I would like to change that a little. As the months fall off the calendar ahead, I will still talk about life in these parts with a little history, a little folklore thrown in, but occasionally I would like to talk as well about some serious things that someone who grew up here notices from time to time.